Awesomely Luvvie: The Vision That Worked

I’ve been a big fan of author and blogger Luvvie Ajayi for years: she’s sharp and funny; her blogs get at real issues in this relatable way that make you want to spend an afternoon hanging out with her. Luvvie started blogging in college, writing about, as she calls it, “college life and randomness and undergrad foolishness.” In 2006, she started her current blog, Awesomely Luvvie. At first, she wrote mostly about pop culture. And as she evolved, “and the world got louder, and I started noticing more,” she started taking on bigger topics: race, politics, and feminism.

In 2010, Luvvie wrote a vision statement as an exercise for the New Leaders Council. It was supposed to take the shape of a letter to a friend ten years in the future. She didn’t think about it too hard. She pictured the life she wanted: one where’s she’d become a New York Times best-selling author and was busy running both a global nonprofit called the Red Pump Project and a global consultancy where she traveled around the world teaching people about business and tech. Seven years later, after much hard work, it’s all true: Luvvie’s book, I’mJudging You: The Do-Better Manual, came out last fall, skyrocketed to the top of the New York Times’ bestseller list, and will soon be turned into a TV show by Shonda Rhimes. The Red Pump Project and Luvvie’s consulting business are thriving, too.

Damon Dahlen, Huffington Post

Luvvie Ajayi

Want to turn your vision statement into reality? Check out Luvvie’s top career tips:

Take Your Audience On Your Journey

“A lot of times we see people do cool things but we don’t know what happened that caused it. I’ve shared my entire journey on social media so people have been able to see me from back when I was still on blogspot, to me being backstage at the Academy Awards, and each way I’ve basically told a story. So my audience has seen and grown with me and they’ve been brought along the entire way.”

Don’t Accept Pickle Juice for a Champagne Job

Or in other words, get paid what you’re worth! Luvvie drew her metaphor from Nicki Minaj, who showed up to what was supposed to be a luxurious photoshoot, with high-end catering, only to find literal pickle juice.

So Nicki left. Why? As Luvvie explains, “if I accept pickle juice now, they’ll keep giving me pickle juice. It’s the idea that when you accept less than you’re worth, that’s what people are going to keep offering you. And you want to actively fight against that and make sure you’re standing in that worth. And when you’re a woman it’s hard. When you’re a black woman it’s something you constantly see.”

Luvvie turns down pickle juice all the time these days - most recently by publicly refusing to speak at the Next Web conference after they said they wouldn’t pay her fees. Luvvie says speaking up was a risk she had to take. “Sometimes you have to be the first domino that falls, or at least stick your neck out. Some of us are in better positions to do it - I’m not staring in my career. You know when and how to take your risk.”

And remember: you can always say no. There’s power in turning down an engagement.

Use Your Platform to Lift People Up

Luvvie hosts regular job call-outs on her Facebook page: it’s a way for her audience to connect with people outside their social networks, and a resource for hiring managers seeking to diversify their workplace.

“When people say things like, ‘oh, I can’t find black or brown whatever position it is’ I wanted to be clear that we exist in droves," Luvvie said. "When I tell people, ‘hey, share your work, share your LinkedIn,’ it’s with the ultimate goal that somebody on that thread gets hired or something positive happens. It’s important for us to use our platforms this way because people operate in silos all the time.”